Pine Trees Hotel, Strathview Terrace, Pitlochry, Perth and Kinross

Description

Andrew Grainger Heiton, 1892; interior alterations including hall and stair by Watson and Salmond, 1914; bedroom wing by Gordon and Scrymegour of Dundee, 1937-8; with further additions 1950s and later. Well-detailed 2-storey and attic, 5-bay, rectangular-plan with enclosed centre courtyard, mock-Tudor mansion house, owned from 1911 to 1923 by His Excellency Yervant Hagog Iskender, founder of 'Citizens of the World Movement', now (2006) run as hotel. Jettied half-timbered and Dutch style crowstepped gables, 1 with balcony; canted bays corbelled to square at 1st floor; timber tracery and groin vaulting to porch; and fine little-altered interior. Whitewashed red Dumfriesshire sandstone with stugged and droved margins; 1938 wing brick and cement render with stugged finish. Ground floor cill course. Corbels, deep coped crowsteps, some segmental-headed windows, relieving arches, stone transoms and mullions, chamfered reveals and raked cills.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: 6-bay entrance elevation to SE with gabled porch incorporating broad segmental-headed doorway. Garden elevation to SW with crowstepped gables to centre and outer left angle, single storey flat-roofed extension to left extending around corner to NW.

Mainly 9-pane glazing pattern over plate glass in timber sash and case and casement windows; porch and stair windows with decorative coloured and leaded glass; 2 windows to SW with figurative coloured glazing and wording 'Per Mare/Per Terras' and 'Macdonald'. Grey slates. Banded, coped whitewashed stacks, some shouldered with cans. Deeply overhanging eaves and plain bargeboarding. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings.

INTERIOR: fine period decorative scheme in place some restored 1999. Decorative plasterwork (much restored 1999), architraved doors, brass door furniture and sash lifts. Porch with tessellated floor and timber groin vaulting. Hall with timber panelled dadoes, corniced doorways and mutuled cornice, segmental-arched stone fireplace with carved chimney piece (restored 1999) and original cast iron radiators beneath window seat. Bar (former smoking room) with strapwork ceiling. Dining room with classical detailing including 2 carved marble fireplaces, decorative ironwork firebacks, plasterwork overmantel, ceiling roses and cornices with cartouche at each angle. Cantilevered marble staircase with classically-detailed heavy cast iron balustrade and brass handrail incorporating semicircular bay at 1st floor with wide landing, coombed ceiling and broad basket-arched openings. 1st floor Molyneux Suite also with 2 carved marble fireplaces, classical plasterwork detail with putti and heavy flanking swags over round-arched alcove to room 3.

Statement of Interest

Group with separately listed Ancillary Building and Walled Garden, Coach House, and Lodge House with Gatepiers, Gates and Boundary Walls. Pine Trees Hotel, an unusual style of building for this area, is well detailed externally and is particularly distinguished by its fine interior plasterwork and timber. Originally known as Tom-na-Monachan, and built for Miss Molyneux, the house was sold, for the sum of £2250, in 1911 to His Excellency Yervant Hagog Iskender, founder of the 'Citizens of the World Movement'. The Iskenders made a number of changes to Tom-na-Monachan including installing the current staircase and a marble bathroom. Sale details drawn up in 1920 give details of the 'Lounge Hall with Pitch pine floor, Mahogany panelled dado and silk tapestried walls, carved mahogany chimney piece'. The SW room with 'large bay window' housed the library, and that with '2 carved marble fireplaces and silk tapestried walls' was the dining room. The first floor boasted a 'Bathroom with marble walls and floor containing Porcelain Bath, Shower, Hot Towel Rail, Lavatory Basin, Foot Bath & WC', and 'Drawing Room' (known as the Green Drawing Room and now the Molyneux Suite) with 'Ante-Drawing Room (now Room 3) again with silk tapestried walls. In all there were 6 Principal Bedrooms, 4 Bathrooms, 2 Servant's Bedrooms and a second floor 'Smoking Room with large window opening onto Balcony'. It was purchased for £5500, in 1923, by Lieutenant Commander Harry Dewhurst who had the exterior whitewashed. Less than a decade later, in 1935, the building was sold again for just £100, in an executors sale, by Mrs Diana Adams of Monifieth. In the same year a company, in the ownership of David Sturrock, and known as The Pine Trees Hotel (Pitlochry) Limited was established, and purchased Tom-na-Monachan for £110. Conversion to a temperance hotel involved some changes, an early brochure for the hotel mentions that 'five additional bathrooms have just been added in the new wing', which was 'furnished by Malcolm's Ltd of 35-49 Commercial Street, Dundee'. During WWII the hotel was taken over by the war office to provide rest for officers.

External Links

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